There is a natural conscience in the worst of men, (much more in the best) which will at some time do its office, and will constrain men to confess, especially their heinous crimes, and especially at the time of death, when they see that their lies will serve their worldly interest no more: and especially if they be men that indeed believe another life. Now consider if the Apostles and Disciples had been deceivers, how heinous a crime they had committed: 1. To affirm a man to be God incarnate, and to be the Saviour of the world,1 on whom all men must trust their souls, &c. if he had been but a deceiver. 2. To make such abundance of lies in open matters of fact. 3. To frame hereupon a new Law to the world. 4. To overthrow the Law of Moses, which was there in force. 5. To abuse the intellects of so many thousand persons with such untruths, and to call the world to such a needless work as the Christian Religion would be, if all this were false! to put the world upon such tasks, as forsaking ⟨p. 318⟩all for Christ. 6. To draw so many to lose their lives in martyrdom to attest a lie. 7. To lose their own time, and spend all their lives and labour upon so bad a work: All these set together, would prove them far worst than any thieves, or murderers, or traitors, if they knew it to be a lie which they preached and attested: There are now no men known on earth, even in this age of villainies, guilty of such a heinous crime as this. And let any man that readeth the Apostles writings, or considereth of their lives and deaths, consider whether it be not next to an impossibility, that so many, and such persons, should go on in such a way, upon no greater motives of benefit than they expected; nay, through such labours, reproach and sufferings, and not one of them to the death be constrained by conscience to detect the fraud, and undeceive the world.
There is a natural conscience in the worst of men, (much more in the best) which will at some time do its office, and will constrain men to confess, especially their heinous crimes, and especially at the time of death, when they see that their lies will serve their worldly interest no more: and especially if they be men that indeed believe another life. Now consider if the Apostles and Disciples had been deceivers, how heinous a crime they had committed: 1. To affirm a man to be God incarnate, and to be the Saviour of the world,1 on whom all men must trust their souls, &c. if he had been but a deceiver. 2. To make such abundance of lies in open matters of fact. 3. To frame hereupon a new Law to the world. 4. To overthrow the Law of Moses, which was there in force. 5. To abuse the intellects of so many thousand persons with such untruths, and to call the world to such a needless work as the Christian Religion would be, if all this were false! to put the world upon such tasks, as forsaking ⟨p. 318⟩all for Christ. 6. To draw so many to lose their lives in martyrdom to attest a lie. 7. To lose their own time, and spend all their lives and labour upon so bad a work: All these set together, would prove them far worst than any thieves, or murderers, or traitors, if they knew it to be a lie which they preached and attested: There are now no men known on earth, even in this age of villanies, guilty of such a heinous crime as this. And let any man that readeth the Apostles writings, or considereth of their lives and deaths, consider whether it be not next to an impossibility, that so many, and such persons, should go on in such a way, upon no greater motives of benefit than they expected; nay, through such labours, reproach and sufferings, and not one of them to the death be constrained by conscience to detect the fraud, and undeceive the world.
- 1Occursurus forsitan est cum aliis multis calumniosis & puerilibus vocibus. Magus fuit, clandestinis artibus omnia illa perfecit, Aegyptiorum ex adytis angelorum potentium nomina, & remotas furatus est disciplinas. Quid dicitis O parvuli? incomperta vobis & nescia temerariae vocis loquacitate garrientes? Ergone illa quae gesta sunt, daemonum fuere praestigiae, & magicarum artium lud•? Potestis aliquem nobis designare, monstrare, ex omnibus illis Magis, qui unquam fuere per secula, consimile aliquid Christo millesima ex parte qui fecerit? Qui sine ulla vi carminum, &c. Arnob. ubi sup. l. 1.
